Last night, Angle sat for a grueling interview with Nevada journalist Jon Ralston, and in a key moment, she clarified her position: She said we should cut unemployment benefits to encourage those who lost their jobs to reenter the labor force at a lower level than they left it.

The key moment came after Ralston pressed Angle to clarify her earlier remarks about unemployment benefits spoiling Americans. Angle claimed she'd been misrepresented, and suggested that the problem is that unemployment benefits are so high that they discourage people from going out and finding lower lower level jobs:

What has happened is the system of entitlement has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job...There are some jobs out there that are available. Because they have to enter at a lower grade and they cannot keep their unemployment, they have to make a choice now.

We're making them make a choice between unemploment benefits and going back to work and working up through the ranks of that job and actually building up a good wage again...

What we need to do is make that unemployment benefit go down, not just completely remove the safety net from them while they go out and go to work.

An incredulous Ralston asked: "If people lose their jobs through no fault of their own, as many have during this recession, Sharron Angle's solution is to cut their unemployment benefits so low so they're somehow gonna go out and find jobs that don't exist?"

Angle confirmed that this is precisely her position: "There are jobs that do exist. That's what we're saying, is that there are jobs. That those jobs are entry level jobs..."

Remember: This is a woman who's running for a job where she gets a paycheck that comes from taxpayers. Now, I don't know about in your area, but here in Bergen County, if you apply for an entry level job at the local Wendy's, and you're, say, in your fifties with over 20 years of information technology experience and a master's degree -- you are NOT going to be hired because "you'll leave as soon as you find something better" (as if there's anything better out there. I wonder what Sharron Angle would say about that?

You are an idiot. Unemployment pays some people $14/hour, and if they get a job, they lose that pay. So instead of being productive and useful and taking a job that pays $10 an hour, they stay on unemployment benefits. That drains tax dollars from poor people and eduation and the environment. It's simple to understand, but you obviously don't.

Now, now, CT, I'll have a dialogue with you, but not if you're going to start by calling people names. First, I'd like you to identify those states where those "some people" are getting $14/hour in unemployment compensation. Unemployment is a fixed sum, not an hourly rate. I live in New Jersey, one of the most expensive cost-of-living states in the country, and unemployment tops out at $405/week. In New York it's around $350. So where are these people getting $560/week? Or is that more apocryphal crap you got from Rush Limbaugh or Fox News, where they pull stuff out of their asses and just put it out there where willing dupes like you are more than eager to believe it so you can continue to think that if you just work really, really hard, the rich guys will let you eat their scraps.

Second of all: There are many long-term unemployed who would be happy to take a job that pays $10/hour. The problem, particularly for those who are highly educated, is that they are deemed "overqualified" under the doctrine of You Won't Want This Crappy Pay Forever And Will Move On When Something Better Comes Along.

Until you can identify ONE SPECIFIC PERSON that fits your description, your statements are nothing but horsepuckey.

Your profile has the word "teacher" in it. Are you in fact a teacher in the public school system? If so, how do you get off criticizing casualties of the private sector when your pay and benefits come from taxpayers?

Jill, I wouldn't give much credence to Mr. Teacher. His blog doesn't allow for comments and he endorses Rick Barber (Alabama) for Congress. Only a very dim bulb could support that nut job. But then, it IS Alabama.

Didn't this post begin with "there's evil, and there's crazy"? Sounds to me like insulting is what you do best. And then when you are insulted (idiot), you pretend like insulting people is bad? Stay consistent.

Unemployment pays something like $350 a week (at least here in Michigan). I guess my math is a bit off- that only equals $9/hour. But my point remains- even $9 is still above what minimum wage jobs pay, so it still dissuades people from getting jobs and being productive, and as long as it is extended people won't take jobs that pay less than $9/hour, so myself and Angle are correct in our logic, and not crazy or evil.

Come on, you are embaressing yourself with this line of argument. You pretend like you care about people, but instead of making people who can work work, you want them to continue to suck down tax dollars, stealing that money from the truely needy, the environment, national defense, or (if it is just debt), my kids and grandkids. Be compasionate, please, and make these people with their fancy degrees and extensive job history find a job.

If those on the dole know they can get more from staying on the dole than working in jobs that pay less than what the dole pays, then of course they're going to stay on the dole. They know how to do their math. If employers start offering more than the dole, then you'll see more people get off their butts and back into the workforce.

Jill is right. Many people with "fancy degrees" and an "extensive job history" are willing to work for $9 or $10/hr, but their credentials would lead prospective employers to think they're overqualified and pass on hiring them.

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